Blog

Ep. 025 What Would You Do with $14.54 Million?

BELL WATCH

Tomorrow (February 20, 2018) is the first day that teams can place the franchise tag on a player. We talk about the divergent views on whether to spend almost 2x the cost of a top-tier RB to keep Le’Veon.

JuJu Smashes Record

Pro Football Focus just reported the top rookie season for a wide receiver from 2007-2017. Guess who’s on top?

Going to School on Draft Class

We compare the Steelers lineup to those of the division champions’ to see how the “selection affect” might predict success. We took the starting offensive and defensive players for each team’s last game and analyzed whether they were originally drafted by the team (or picked up as a free agent) or brought in from another team through free agency.

As you can see, the Steelers like to develop their own talent, with 18 players who hadn’t previously played for another team.

Take a look at how each teams’ starting roster broke down in terms of draft picks and undrafted free agents. The Steelers by far had the fewest number of players taken after the third round or who were undrafted with five. Over half the Vikings starters (12) were in this category and the Patriots fielded 11.

The Steelers also had the highest number of #1 draft choices on the field with eight compared with the Vikings, Patriots and Eagles who each had five. It’s tough to draw any conclusions from than our player selections or coaching could be improved upon.